"I’m sending two cars from the field office right now to secure the perimeter at St. Jude," Garrison said, the sound of rapid keystrokes echoing in the background. "They’ll take custody of Maya and bring her directly to the 26 Federal Plaza nursery. Nobody touches that little girl, Elias. Not the NYPD, not the private security, nobody."
"Thank you, Marcus."
"Now tell me about Concincaid," Garrison said, his tone turning clinical. "Is he acting alone?"
"No," I replied, remembering the smooth, coordinated arrival of the four patrolmen and the practiced deference they showed him. "He had backup on scene within ninety seconds of unholstering his weapon. No radio call went out over the standard citywide dispatch—I was listening to the frequencies on my earpiece. That means he used a private text group or an unencrypted off-duty channel. They have an entire network operating out of the Nineteenth."
"They do," Garrison said grimly. "We’ve had an open file on the Nineteenth's moonlighting details for six months, Elias. It’s called Operation Broken Star. We knew they were running an off-the-books security ring for the luxury retail shops on Madison and the private academies on the side streets. Shaking down vendors, charging five grand a month for 'enhanced response,' pocketing cash from the foreign consulates. But we didn't have a clean hook into their operational hub because the local brass is buried in it up to their collar pins."
"You have your hook now," I said.
"Clear as glass. The truck he shook down this morning belongs to an interstate freight line out of Newark. The driver was visibly terrified. If we pull the school’s exterior optical feeds, we have Concincaid taking the cash at eight-twelve, assaulting me at eight-fifteen, and pulling iron at eight-seventeen."
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"I'm calling the United States Attorney right now," Garrison said. "Sarah Lin is on duty. She hates dirty cops more than I do. We can have an emergency Rule 41 search warrant for Concincaid’s locker, his personal vehicle, and his private security office signed by Judge Miller before noon."
"Don't just hit the locker, Marcus," I said, stepping off the train at Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall. "Hit the bank accounts. A sergeant making a hundred and twenty grand doesn't run an extortion racket on school drop-offs unless he’s laundering it through a shell. He was wearing an eighty-thousand-dollar Patek Philippe under that utility cuff. I saw the bezel when he reached for his holster."
Garrison let out a low whistle. "A Patek on an NYPD salary. Subtle. Where are you heading?"
"I’m walking into the Moynihan building right now," I said, stepping up the concrete stairs into the crisp morning sunlight of lower Manhattan. "I’m going to inform my Chief Deputy that the Special Operations Group is formally attaching itself to your public corruption task force as primary security and tactical support."